Monday, July 29, 2013

After my many attempts to revitalize this blog over the last few years, I think I'm finally ready to admit that it isn't really going to happen. I'm starting graduate school this fall (studying writing and publishing - in about six weeks!) and will still be working full time, so I think I'm even less likely now than previously to be able to sew very much, and/or blog about it. I mean, I certainly hope I will sew, but I guess given the limitations I'm better off limiting myself to the sewing itself and not adding the extra activity.

I will miss my blogging friends and hope to pop in on them now and then! Although even that I haven't done in quite some time. I know I will return one day, and in the meantime I will leave this blog up for anyone who wants to poke through the archives.

So let's not think of it as good-bye so much as until we meet again...

Sunday, December 30, 2012

So the handmade Christmas happened. Of the five people I needed gifts for who were involved in the "handmade only" gift exchange, I ended up making three gifts, buying one that was handmade by someone else (this was allowed within the rules of the exchange), and giving on "gift certificate" for a future handmade gift. So you would think that making only three gifts would be an easy task and I wouldn't let it go down to the wire...but of course I did. The good news, though, is that they all got done and I'm pretty pleased with them.

The gifts are as follows:

1) A set of throw pillows:

These I made for my little brother with scraps from the t-shirt quilt I made him several years ago. He recently moved into a new house so I thought he could use some help with the decorating...

My mom sent me Rayna Gillman's book as a surprise earlier this year, without realizing that I was already a fan of her blog. This mini-quilt is the result of my early experiments with her techniques. It was a lot of fun to make. The purple section of the mini-quilt is a re-worked block from this quilt that I have a ton of leftover blocks from. Perhaps more of those are to come.

Anyway, overall I enjoyed the handmade Christmas and will have to think about doing more handmade gifts in the future.

As the year draws to a close I'm starting to think about what I want to accomplish creatively in the new year. I'm glad to be able to say that I actually made a few quilts in 2012, which is certainly a respectable thing for a quilter to be able to say! Ha ha. Hopefully I can keep this trend going next year. I just want to think critically (as usual) about what specifically I want to work on.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Now, really, you would think I would know better than to let this happen, but apparently not.

I was finishing this up right before the baby shower this morning and in the craziness I somehow let it leave my possession without getting more than one not-very-straight-or-well-lit picture of it. Pretty inexcusable for a blogger, right? Hopefully I can get some better ones once baby gets here.

It actually is fairly straight in real life, and more crinkly since this was before I washed it. But at least it's something to give you an idea of what I made.

I decided to machine sew the binding for the first time in my life and it was an enormously frustrating process, I didn't like how it looked, and the edges got distorted in some places due to my occasional total mangling of it. Sigh. However, that being said, I could actually conceive that with practice (maybe a lot of practice) I could achieve a machine sewn binding that would be acceptable to me.

I also used a medium loft batt so it is a little puffier than what I normally make, but I think that works well for baby. The last time I was at JoAnn's batting was 40% off and I bought a bunch of different batts that I've never tried before in the interest of experimentation. This is the first experiment. I also only quilted in the ditch, which adds to the puffiness. It will be nice and soft landing pad for tummy time and other adventures.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

So baby quilt #1 of fall 2012 = accomplished. And it's a very good feeling.

There is one more baby quilt I am definitely going to do this fall, and others that are more optional depending on how much time I end up having, so we'll see what I come up with!

My family and I also agreed to give all handmade presents for Christmas this year - they can be handmade by someone else and purchased by me, but all handmade. However my goal is to make everything myself rather than buy things handmade by others, so I need to get started on that very soon as well. Hopefully I am not biting off more than I can chew. You never know with me though.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Anyone who has continued clicking through my posts through the ups and downs of the last few years will understand why this post resonated with me so much. Breaks will happen, life does ebb and flow...the secret is to not let breaks become full stops. That is what I am committing to. That, and maybe fewer breaks.

Well, here I am in the sewing room continuing to work on baby quilts. There is a certain challenge in making gifts. There is this tension between making what I want to make and making what I think the other person will like - looking for that place where the two intersect, if such a place exists. I have been playing around with different ideas as I suggested a few posts ago, but recently began to get frustrated because nothing I came up with seemed "right" for the friend with the soonest due date, and neither did anything I had on hand already seem appropriate.

I finally decided to revisit the baby registry and after looking at all the yellow and green prints that she'd chosen for the things on the registry I glanced around my space and my eye rested on a yellow and green print that I have been in love with lately (from a dress I bought at a thrift store intending to wear but that turned out to have a small tar stain on it that I had missed). I decided to pull fabrics that I had on hand that would work with that print, and suddenly I started to see what might be at the intersection between my style and their tastes. This is what I came up with:

It is simple, but the best baby quilts usually are. The light fabric is a buttery soft butter yellow flannel.

To me it is sweet, but not saccharin, baby appropriate, but still a tiny bit edgy.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

I say all the time that I love living in a place with four seasons. It's not that this isn't true. I do like having four distinct seasons, because I appreciate the contrast and think that spring and summer would never be so nice if they didn't come after fall and winter.

That being said, there are few people you hear complaining more at the end of summer than me. There are lots of wonderful things about fall, certainly. It's a great season in many ways. But it can take it's time getting here. I find it a little hard to let go of the warm, no jacket, no worries weather.

This year, though, I will be ready to go having finally finished this project...

This quilt/coverlet/blanket (no batting...what do you call it?), the early origins of which can be found here, is made from felted fool sweaters that I collected over a few years. Most of them came to me pre-felted - either because they were mine and I felted them accidentally (oops!) or because I found them at the thrift store or at the shelter I used to work at already felted - no doubt rendered unusable to the original owner due to a mistaken trip through the dryer.

I love that this project enabled me to give new life to these objects that had been rendered unfit for their original purpose (being worn as a sweater of a particular size!) and might have therefore been thought to be useless. I realize more and more how much we miss when we look at the world that way!

Monday, August 13, 2012

As much as I love free sewing, making it up as I go along, and trying new things, there are nevertheless a few traditional quilt patterns on my list that I will not be happy until I have made. One of them is Ocean Waves. Back, way back, when I went through a frenzy of cutting up my scraps for different projects in the hopes of reducing the irreducible volume thereof, I cut a big pile of squares destined to become half-square-triangles for an Ocean Waves quilt.

This is a true scrap quilt in that every scrap in the box is fair game and no attempt has been made to choose a color scheme or coordinate colors. It's incredibly fun to be reminded of the sources of all the different scraps - it takes me back to a lot of old projects.

Truthfully, with the number of time-limited projects I've mentally committed myself to lately, and my track record of late, this is probably not the best thing for me to be spending my time on. However, I've had a lot going on at work lately, and my ability to compartmentalize, usually one of my strengths, has been really challenged. This repetitive, methodical project has been really relaxing to work on as I can just focus on one simple task and it helps me clear my head. I have been listening to the works of Jane Austen on iTunes while sewing away.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

An in-progress baby quilt. Within my circle of friends there are several little ones expected this fall and winter, so I am turning my attention to shower gifts. At this point I am just working on a few different ideas to see what develops rather than planning any one project for one specific person.

This started just by sewing scraps together, and is mostly from the scrap bin. When I started on it I thought it was going to look very different, but this is what it quickly became.

Also, check out my new sewing table:

A friend moving to California was getting rid of it, and it is much nicer than the old computer desk I had been using!

Monday, February 27, 2012

So since I have been making my return to creativity I've been thinking about checking out the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild with an eye towards making some creative friends and finding new ways to challenge myself. I was planning to make the February meeting my first. I cleared my schedule for it, planned my route, and started something for the February project, quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. The only mistake I made was making a mental note that the meetings started at 4:00 PM. Then, as you've probably imagined, when I was on my way out the door (literally, with coat on & purse in hand) and went to the website to write down the exact address of the meeting place...I realized the meeting started at 2:00. Unfortunately I was already running about 15-20 minutes late so I decided it wasn't going to be worth it to spend an hour and a half on the train in order to be at the meeting for probably 40 minutes!

So maybe I'll make the March meeting?

Ah well.

I guess the good thing is that it inspired me to start this AAQI quilt, which I will still finish and donate. I'm thinking I'll add some embroidery but I haven't decided exactly what yet. Then quilt it up and send it in. I'm very much hoping not to lose steam on it - I mean none of this should take very long, so it's a good test of my New Year's follow through...